Fdisk doesn’t always work properly on disk sizes over 2TB. In our new servers, we’ve been having 3TB raids installed. Here are the instructions for setting up the disk.
[root@server ~]# parted /dev/sda GNU Parted 1.6.19 Copyright (C) 1998 - 2004 Free Software Foundation, Inc. This program is free software, covered by the GNU General Public License. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. Using /dev/sda (parted) print Disk geometry for /dev/sda: 0.000-2860962.000 megabytes Disk label type: gpt Minor Start End Filesystem Name Flags 1 0.017 3000.000 ext3 (parted) mklabel gpt (parted) mkpart primary 0 -0 (parted) quit Information: Don't forget to update /etc/fstab, if necessary. [root@server ~]# mkfs.ext3 /dev/sda1 mke2fs 1.35 (28-Feb-2004) Filesystem label= OS type: Linux Block size=4096 (log=2) Fragment size=4096 (log=2) 366215168 inodes, 732406263 blocks 36620313 blocks (5.00%) reserved for the super user First data block=0 Maximum filesystem blocks=734003200 22352 block groups 32768 blocks per group, 32768 fragments per group 16384 inodes per group Superblock backups stored on blocks: 32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736, 1605632, 2654208, 4096000, 7962624, 11239424, 20480000, 23887872, 71663616, 78675968, 102400000, 214990848, 512000000, 550731776, 644972544 Writing inode tables: done Creating journal (8192 blocks): done Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done This filesystem will be automatically checked every 28 mounts or 180 days, whichever comes first. Use tune2fs -c or -i to override. [root@cps3 ~]# tune2fs -c0 -i0 /dev/sda1 tune2fs 1.35 (28-Feb-2004) Setting maximal mount count to -1 Setting interval between check 0 seconds
The mkpart primary 0 -0 says to use the entire disk for the partition.